Ella Glendining Interview for Is There Anybody Out There? | Sundance Film Festival 2023

LRM Online's Gig Patta chatted with director and writer Ella Glendining for the documentary Is There Anybody Out There?
Born with a disability so rare that no reliable statistics for it exist, filmmaker Ella Glendining wonders if there is anyone who can share the experience of living in a body like hers. This simple question, one which nondisabled people so often take for granted, leads to a journey to not only others who live like her, but to the realization that meeting them changes how she sees herself in the world, as well as many surprises on this journey.
With intimate personal diaries, conversations with similarly bodied people and doctors treating her condition, and a searching and unique perspective, Is There Anybody Out There? invites the viewer to consider questions and assumptions they may have never encountered before. Are people born this way to be “fixed” by medicine? Is it ableist to see disabled people as living an undesired existence? With warmth and an infectious joy for her body and life as it is, Glendining takes you on an unforgettable experience that will change how you see others, like and unlike you.
Is There Anybody Out There? makes its premiere at Sundance Film Festival 2023.